N e o c y b e r n e t i c Posthuman
( P r e s e n t e d a t C u l t u r a l Typhoon 2 0 1 6 , Tokyo U n i v e r s i t y o f t h e A r t s )
John Wolfgang R o b e r t s
1 would like to talk today about systems, the objects that constitute those systems, and the narratives that emerge 合omtheir entanglement. More specifically, 1 am interested in the ways our human narratives are in a constant state of metamo叩hosis,contingent upon on how our environments create us, and how we in tum help create our environments. And 1 would like to give special attention to the roles of objects, which contribute to these narratives. 1 will first speak about regarding narratives in systemic terrns. Then 1 will introduce neocybemetics to offer a framework for thinking about our own cultural system‑narratives. Finally, 1 will provide a textual example to illustrate entanglement and emergence as it occurs within and between the environments of social, psychic, and technological systems of our cultural envlronments.
Perhaps it will help to begin by telling a familiar story about how many societies in Modernity, have largely come to see themselves. Neil Badmington writes:
According to Humanism [...] the human being occupies a natural and eternal place at the very center of things, where it is distinguished absolutely from machines, animals, and other inhuman entities; where it shares with all other human beings a unique essence; and where it behaves and believes according to something called human nature." In the Humanist account, human beings are exceptional, autonomous, and set above the world that lies at their feet.Man," to use the profoundly problematic signifier conventionally found in descriptions of the human condition," is the hegemonic measure of all things (Badmington 2011; 374)
John Wolfgang Roberts
It is not difficult to see, how this kind of thinking has led to various kinds of prejudices, exploitations of the environment, ideas of human entitlement, lack of compassion for nonhumans, and a notion that we are separate, and powerful over, the objects that come into our lives. Instead, 1 would like to begin to tell a di百erentstory, particularly one that goes against the grain ofthe Humanist narrative.
Consider now this definition by neocybemetician, Bruce Clarke: [a] system may be any totality composed of interdependent elements. [...] [A] complex ensemble unified in such a way that a process emerges企om,and only from the interdependent interactions of those elements' (Clarke 2011; 214, bolded text not in original). 1 emphasize the bolded words to draw your attention to the fact that an ensemble', narratively speaking, can be a cast of characters, settings, points of view, temporal shifts, or motifs, to name a few, interdependently creating a process', or plot trajectory‑that is, changes in a story. The interdependence of elements constitutes the network of entanglement. The ongoing process of change, or the story, is the system‑narrative's emergence.
1 contend, just as we see this processual ensemble unfold as we read a novel, so too do we partake in, and live out the stories of our lives as entangled and emergent. Rhetorician, John Rodden, writes:
We live 0町 livesas stories‑or as narratives," as the literary scholars prefer to say. Whatever the term, the fact is that a deeper understanding of the subtle dynamics of storytelling and narratology" can shed valuable light both on literature and on our lives. The fictional stories that become part of our cultural fabric and social mythology both reflect and shape our lives: the plots of novels and the storied lives" of fictional characters influence our lives (and resemble them too). We have much to leam from closer study of literary narratives. Art not only entertains," as Horace observes in The Art ofPoetη, it also edifies." (Rodden 2008; 148‑149)
In other words, stories are a form of technology that help construct us, in the way that we construct them.
Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle draw five points about what constitutes a narrative:
1. Stories are everywhere.
2. […] if stories are everywhere, we are also in stories
3. The telling of a story is always bound up with power, with questions of authority, property and domination.
4. […] there is always more than one story.
5. Stories always have something to tell us about stories themselves: they always involve self‑reflexive and metafictional dimensions. (Bennett and Royle 2009; 54)
Of particular interest is number five since it offers the conditions for entanglement and emergence. This is because of the paradoxes created by self‑reference, which catalyzes new meanings and fu巾erparadoxes‑the plot tr可ectoriesare endless and unpredictable. In the same way that speaking about na汀ativesis to speak about particular systems, so to, speaking about metafictions is to speak about neocybemetics, or self‑referential systems.
H. Porter Abbott writes,ι[a] reflexive (or self‑conscious) [or sel手referential]narrative is one that, either by formal or thematic means, calls attention to its condition as a constructed art' (Abbott 2008; 241). In other words, the artifact communicates to the observer the conditions of its construction. By doing so we come to question the boundaries of the artwork, since the self‑referential disruptions challenge our preconceived notions of naηatlve conventlOn.
M.C. Escher's Drawing Hands' is an excellent self‑referential example that forces us to ask,What does it mean to say that art is creating itself?" [This image is easily accessible via Intemet search.] For this reason we become aware of a certain ensemble of actors in play: not only the creator of the art, notions of what constitutes art, and the observer who co‑creates meaning through interpretations of the art, but also the artwork itself, which begins to exhibit